


We All Scream

by Slantedlight (BySlantedlight)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:49:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4447637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BySlantedlight/pseuds/Slantedlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...for ice cream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Scream

Cowley was in an oddly expansive mood, Bodie thought, as they watched Ted Milligan carted away to join the others in the police cars. Of course they'd been after Milligan for a good while now - _a thoroughly nasty piece of work_ Cowley'd called him, with that look on his face that let you knew he meant it. No look now though, he was all smiles, and hands tucked in his trouser pockets as if he hadn't a care in the world. Be nice to think that's where he kept his pound notes, a _wee dram_ 'd go down a treat just now, and they'd passed _The Duchess of Devonshire_ a couple of streets back, but somehow he didn't have _that_ look on his face either. 

Still - Doyle was in a good mood too, laughing at something or other he'd spotted behind them, at something Cowley had said, and Bodie was sure that even if _he_ couldn't be persuaded to a pint, he could be persuaded to do something else with all that energy. Yeah... Bodie stared at him cheerfully for a moment, pretending he'd heard whatever it was Doyle was paying attention to. A _something else_ that was energetic, something _horizontal_ \- in fact he could fancy that more even than a drink right now, the atmosphere of the day getting to him. Even the coppers were looking cheerful as they headed away, sirens off but blue lights flashing.

Yeah. He'd take Doyle away, and...

"Alright lads - you've earned it!" Cowley was turning away, still smiling, still relaxed.

Or they could have that drink first. Oil the way for everything that would. He clapped his hands together, tried to catch Doyle's eye - bloody sunglasses - and turned to follow the Cow, reaching out to tug Doyle along at the same time.

Except that Cowley wasn't heading for his car, wasn't even heading across the road and in the direction of the _Duchess_ , Cowley was... Where the hell _was_ Cowley going? 

Doyle's hands were on his waist suddenly, under his jacket, because he'd stopped abruptly right in his path after pulling Doyle along behind him... even as he tried to puzzle it all out he could feel their warmth, their weight, the... the _Doyle_ -ness of them. At the end of a day like today, they were a promise, those hands.

Except... He managed to focus, to see exactly what it was that Cowley was stepping up to, only just across the road. 

It was an ice cream van - a bloody ice cream van.

Doyle's hands, warm on him...

"Tell me that's not what I think it is," he muttered, turning his head so that only Doyle could hear. "Tell me that our big reward for putting away that bastard Milligan isn't a strawberry ice..."

"Alright, it's not a strawberry ice," Doyle said obligingly into his ear. "Your big reward for putting away Milligan isn't a strawberry ice." He paused. "How about chocolate..?"

Doyle's hands, still on him.

"Ray..."

"...chocolate ice cream, dripping down your skin, just waiting for someone to lick it off..."

"Now _that_ sounds like a reward," he said, cheered. Of course Doyle had been thinking the same thing - well, nearly the same thing. "Your place or mine?"

"Cowley's." Doyle nodded to the van in front of them. "And you might have to settle for vanilla."

Well that'd suit him just as well, plain and simple, Doyle bent and breathless underneath him...

"D'ye want these or not?" Cowley called, and he felt Doyle give him a shove to get him going. Alright, they'd have an ice, and then...

"Best keep your strength up," Cowley was saying, passing him a cone. It was vanilla, Mr Whippy. "You're going to need it."

He was going to need it. Bodie licked cheerfully at his ice cream. He'd need it to keep up with Doyle, he always did. Little bugger did had reserves you wouldn't... Wait a minute. A nasty suspicion was peering up at him from the back of his mind. It looked alot like Cowley. "What d'you mean, _keep our strength up_...?"

"I'll need your reports before you take yourselves off home," Cowley said. "We've got this one chance to bag Milligan good and proper, and I'm not having the magistrate release him tomorrow morning on a technicality. I want all the reports by then - double-checked and in triplicate!"

"Sir..."

"No buts, Bodie! I don't ask much of you, but completing the paperwork is..."

He let Cowley's voice blur into the background. There went their early finish, their late finish, and no doubt half the night as well. Bodie felt his face fall, as if he was seven again and his dad had vanished off before the match on Saturday.

Doyle nudged him, and his ice cream tipped precariously for a moment. He eyed it morosely where it had slid to one side of the cone, unbalanced where he'd licked it on one side.

"Look at that," Doyle said in disgust beside him. "All over my hand." He nudged Bodie again, tipped his head towards his ice cream and then looked back down at his own smeared wrist. "Dripped all over me, this. 'ave to find somewhere to get it cleaned off - don't want to get into the car all sticky..."

The car? Not like Doyle to care what happened to the...

Oh. 

He caught Doyle's eye in return, had to look away fast. "Don't want to get it all over the car," he agreed, suddenly feeling as if he was going to get to the match after all. And then he was grinning, as wide and as happy as Cowley's own grin, though for different reasons - for very, very different reasons - and he found he couldn't stop it. "Let's find somewhere to get you cleaned off - like a kid he is, sir, can't take him anywhere..." He reached out to grab Doyle's sleeve again, pulling him away from Cowley, away from the van, because there were hidden corners on the way to hq, and shadows and places where no one would go but themselves, and the sun was shining, and Milligan was safely taken away, and Doyle - Doyle was sticky with ice cream, and his cone was still dripping. "We'll see you back at base... reports on your desk...thanks for the ice cream, sir!"


End file.
